Thunderbolts of the Gods is a
108 page 8-1/2 x 11 full color monograph based on the life work of the two
authors--a revolutionary synthesis of comparative mythology and the
newly-discovered "Electric Universe".

The Monograph includes
an hour-long DVD introducing various aspects of the Electric
Universe explained by members of the Thunderbolts Group.

The
idea of an electric comet traces to scientific discussion in the
second half of the nineteenth century. In 1871, professor W.
Stanley Jevons, suggested (in the journal Nature) that comets might
owe their “peculiar phenomena to electric action”. The following
year Scientific American reported on the research of “Professor Zollner of Leipsic”, who suggested that comet tails, “which consist
of very small particles, yield to the action of the free electricity
of the sun”.

Ten years later the electric comet had gained momentum. The 1882 English
Mechanic and World of Science reported a “rapidly growing feeling
amongst physicists that both the self-light of comets and the
phenomena of their tails belong to the order of electrical
phenomena”. By 1896, Nature could report: “It has long been imagined
that the phenomenon of comet’s tails are in some way due to a solar
electrical repulsion”.

In retrospect it is clear that those envisioning electric activity of
comets were limited by traditional concepts of electrostatics,
concepts that have continued to breed misunderstanding into the 21st
century. But experimental knowledge of the “plasma universe” began
with Kristian Birkeland very early in the 20th century,
not long before Irving Langmuir named “plasma” for its life-like
qualities. Later, the groundbreaking work of Hannes Alfvén showed
conclusively that simple electrostatic formulae were wholly
inadequate to account for plasma behavior.

These
things were unknown to the scientific community when Hugo Benioff
published “The Present State of the Electric Theory of Comet Forms”
in 1920. Benioff acknowledged that, “the outward radial motions in
all directions of particles close to the nucleus are best explained
as resulting from an electrical charge associated with the nucleus”.
But as for the “repulsion” of comet tails, he said, this required a
charge separation beyond anything that could be practically
envisioned. So, to explain the behavior of comet tails, he settled
on the principle of “radiation pressure”, an idea to which all of
astronomy moved in the following decades.

Today,
however, we know that comet tails can be influenced by
solar radiation “pressure”, but they are clearly not governed
by it.

Nevertheless, the electric comet faded quickly as astronomers came
to envision an electrically inert, gravitationally dominated
universe. Earlier investigators, despite a comparative lack of data,
were more interdisciplinary. They could see certain features of
comets calling for an electrical explanation. But as specialization
took over, astronomers soon lost all interest in electricity, a
subject eventually banished from the trainingof astronomers
and disappearing completely from their vocabulary.

Was the progressive dismissal of electricity based on evidence, or on
something else? The comet provides a good illustration of the point
we’ve made many times in these pages. Theoretical assumptions can
marginalize uncomfortable facts to such an extent that they are no
longer noticed or remembered.

When 19th century astronomers wondered about the role of
electricity in comet behavior, they could see that a cometary coma,
the spherical envelope around the nucleus, could not be maintained
by gravity. But well before the full flowering of modern plasma
research, experiments showed that when a charged probe was placed in
plasma, a sphere of oppositely charged particles would gather around
the probe. The early researchers were only following the
experimental evidence when they recognized electrical phenomena in
the sphere of the coma.

Today
our view of the comet is greatly enhanced by the technological
achievements of the twentieth century; but critical thinking—the
ability to question theoretical assumptions—has collapsed to the
point that astronomers barely notice the incongruities in coma
behavior.

Given the trivial gravity of a typical comet nucleus, the escape velocity
will be something like walking speed. Take a hop and you will never
return. Our visits to comets have shown material escaping from the
surface of nuclei in jets, some at supersonic speeds. The jets throw
material into space in all directions, at different speeds and in
irregular patterns. Then what happens? A force that you cannot find
in the lexicon of astronomers gathers the material into a spherical
form, despite the fact that much of this material is millions of
kilometers or more from the nucleus and could not possibly “see” the
nucleus gravitationally. Nevertheless, in the vacuum of space, as
the comet speeds around the Sun, the nucleus continues to hold in
place the giant spherical cloud, up to 10 million kilometers or more
in diameter.

As astronomers continued to evolve their gravitational models of the
heavens, the pioneers of plasma science explored the role of the
electric force, which is known to be 39 orders of magnitude
(1000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 times) more
powerful than gravity. Their explorations took them far beyond
electrostatics, to demonstrate the powerful dynamics of electric
currents in plasma and in high-energy plasma discharge. They
enumerated the attributes of “double layers” that gather as
spherical shells around charged objects in plasma. Across the walls
of such layers, they observed intense electric fields, while across
the larger distances between such layers the field could be much
weaker, even imperceptibly weak.

Plasma
events are scalable. What occurs in the plasma laboratory can occur
on a vastly larger scale in space plasma. Hence, observations of
plasma behavior in the laboratory are a logical reference when
considering the mysteries of cometary comas—and that includes the
many enigmas that surround the identification of “water” in the
comas. According to the electric theorists, electricity can
accomplish the very things that have baffled the cometologists.

In
their analysis of the coma, astronomers begin with the assumption
that water is evaporating in the heat of the Sun, off the surface
ices of the nucleus. They do not “see” the water, but call upon the
effects of solar radiation (photolysis) on assumed
“water” to account for the abundant hydroxyl radical OH
(oxygen-hydrogen molecules) in the coma.

In our
previous Picture of the Day we noted another possibility.
Astronomers have not considered the energetic ionic chemical
reactions that would accompany plasma discharge “sputtering” of a cathodeor negatively charged object in space.
Production of OH would be virtually certain if proton streams
sputtered material from the surface in the fashion that the electric
theorists have claimed.

When theoretical issues arise, the contrast between predicted behavior
under the two vantage points becomes a distinct advantage. With this
advantage in mind we offer the following summary of facts and
contrasting interpretations.

1. Negatively charged nucleus.
The electric view compares the behavior of negatively charged probes in
plasma experiments to the behavior of comets. It therefore predicts
a spacecraft moving through the coma would encounter a number of
plasma sheaths or double layers as it approached the nucleus of a
comet. Plasma sheaths will form between regions in which the
characteristics of the plasma itself change. Across a sheath the
voltage differential between the comet nucleus and the solar wind
should show up most dramatically. Positive ions should "pile up" on
the sunward side of the sheath in the coma’s electrical response to
the solar wind. In fact, this was observed at both comets Hyakutake
and Hale-Bopp and surprised researchers by its unexpected stability
over "hours, days and even weeks."

The researchers were
surprised because they had imagined that the concentration of ions
was a mechanical “bow shock” as material in the jets encountered the
solar wind. Since the jets are highly variable, the intensity of the
“bow shock” should vary accordingly. However, plasma sheaths respond
only to the electrical environment, which will be less variable than
episodic jets, and will be most concentrated in the sunward
direction, precisely as observed.

Neutral oxygen (O) near
the nucleus shows a spectral line indicative of the presence of an
"intense" electric field. So the electric model anticipates
energetic "hot" electrons and negatively charged ions close to the
nucleus, as sputtering strips atoms and molecules directly from
negatively charged rock. The International Cometary Explorer (ICE)
mission to comet Giacobini-Zinner found "hot electrons coming back
more and more frequently." The Halley probes detected “very
energetic electron populations” in the coma.
And the presence of negatively charged ions surprised the
investigators. They wrote, "…an efficient production mechanism, so
far unidentified, is required to account for the observed densities
[of negative ions]."

In
fact, the intense electric field near the comet nucleus makes no
sense whatsoever if a comet is merely an inert body plowing through
the solar wind. Electric currents produce magnetic fields, and
"magnetized cometary plasma … is much larger than was
theoretically predicted" [emphasis ours], according to the 1986
Nature report on Comet Halley.

2. OH production.
If one
accepts the evidence that a comet is a negatively charged body
moving through the weak radial electric field of a positively
charged Sun, the production of OH in the coma will not look anything
like the standard picture.

Taken
as a whole, the facts we have already summarized (hereand
here), virtually preclude abundant water on the comet nucleus,
while the sputtering hypothesis stands out in its consistency with
all available data. In the electric model, negative oxygen ions will
be accelerated away from the comet in energetic jets, then combine
preferentially with protons from the solar wind to form the observed
OH radical and the neutral hydrogen gathered around the coma in vast
concentric bubbles. The reactions simply confirm the energetic
charge exchange between the nucleus and Sun.

It is
interesting to note that the warning signs for standard theory came
very early. Even before the first visit to a comet, a 1980 report in
the journal Nature outlined some of the mysteries and anomalies. It
concluded: “…cometary scientists need to consider more
carefully whether H20-ice really does constitute a major
fraction of comet nuclei…"This cautionary note was not
heeded. Later, in 1986, Nature reported that OH issues remained
perplexing and "may
indicate the existence of parents of OH other than H20”.
But in the years that followed, despite the shocking failure of the
“dirty snowball” model to predict any milestone discoveries, one of
the most critical questions simply disappeared from scientific discussion.

3. Too much atomic hydrogen.
Early in the 1970s, astronomers were stunned when they observed cometary
comas in ultraviolet light. They discovered immense envelopes of
fluorescing hydrogen atoms much larger than the visible coma. In the
case of Comet Bennett the hydrogen coma was an "almost unbelievable"
15 million kilometers in diameter. That's 10 times
the diameter of the Sun! Where did this immense volume of atomic
hydrogen come from?
The prevailing theory of OH production requires some sort of balance
between OH and neutral hydrogen. Whatever the difficulties faced by
the standard model explanation of the spherical coma, the
difficulties can only grow in relation to a hydrogen envelope
millions of kilometers in diameter.

4. Plasma sheaths and “double layers”.
Many features of the
electric model of the comet derive from the laboratory behavior of
electrified plasma and plasma discharge. In an electrically neutral
environment nothing comparable to the sheaths that occur around
charged bodies in plasma will be expected. Comet researchers working
with the “dirty snowball” model of a comet expected no such phenomena.

Across the wall or
boundary of a plasma sheath—what plasma experts call “a double
layer”—an intense electric field may occur in contrast to a weaker
field between these boundaries. Variations in the energies of
charged particles will contrast sharply with what would be expected
in an electrically neutral environment.

This is exactly what
occurred as Giotto and the two Vega spacecraft moved through
Halley’s coma. The Nature reports are replete with references to
unexpected variations in charged particle energy levels—

The report notes three
regions of variation in ion (charged particle) characteristics. An
outer region “contains pick-up ions in the solar wind". This may be
interpreted electrically as the outer edge of the comet's plasma
sheath. A second region inside the so-called “bow shock” stretches
for several thousand kilometers, revealing the most intense fluxes
and distinct intensity spikes. This may be the crossing of the
double layer, where a strong radial electric field exists. A third
region is characterized by lower intensities, but with sharp spikes
at closest approach. Here we may be seeing the cometary plasma being
disturbed by the accelerated ions and electrons from the comet jets.

In Vega 1’s close
approach, narrow peaks were evident “at all energies”. The report
says, “We note that this feature coincides with the occurrence of
maximum magnetic field intensity and rapid changes in field
direction”. Of course, the magnetic field measures the strength of
the electric currents flowing near the comet. Finally, at closest
approach, there was a sudden increase in highly energetic electrons.
“No significant variation in this flux had been observed for several
days preceding closest approach”.

At a distance of 40,000
kilometers from the nucleus, the Vega 2 craft detected a surge in
cometary plasma density, “accompanied by large fluxes of
suprathermal electrons with energies up to a few keV”
[emphasis ours].

“The most dramatic
effects were observed in the last minute before closest approach…
two short bursts of ions with energies up to 400 eV were observed:
During the last 45 sec before closest approach, the flux increases
rapidly until the spacecraft appears to be surrounded by a dense and
very hot cloud of plasma… the energies are very much higher than had
been anticipated”. For these “energies of the observed ions” the
researchers had no explanation.

5. X-rays.
In1996, the German X-ray Roentgen Satellite (ROSAT) viewed the comet
Hyakutake. The astronomers hoped to see a small smudge at best and
some wondered why anyone would bother. X-rays had never been
detected from a comet before and theorists could only imagine a few
ways that a comet could produce any x-rays at all. So the
astronomers were shocked to find x-rays up to 100 times more intense
than even the most optimistic predictions! Also the emission
flickered on a time scale of hours. "We were prepared to see
nothing. So it was an enormous surprise when this thing was just a
boomer," said a team member. A NASA report noted, "…there must be
previously unsuspected 'high-energy' processes taking place in the
comet…"

This was the last thing
that the standard model would have anticipated, but an electric
current in a near vacuum is the way we produce x-rays on earth. The
flickering is characteristic of a glow discharge. An intense
electric field in a cometary double layer can accelerate electrons
and cometary ions so that they collide with solar wind ions and emit
x-rays. It is significant that the x-rays did not come from a region
expected by a “mechanical shock” model—the only model available to
the surprised astronomers. They came from a crescent-shaped region
in the direction of the Sun, which is where we should expect the
maximum electrical stress. Following this chance discovery,
researchers have become accustomed to x-rays from comets, but the
uncompromising implication of an electrical transaction, or
charge exchange, between the comet and the Sun has yet to
sink in.

6. Flare-ups in deep freeze. In 1991,
comet Halley flared up to 300 times its normal brightness between
the orbits of Saturn and Uranus, 14 times further than the Earth
from the Sun. The comet's surface should be at -200 ˚C and "no kind
of chemistry can work that far out from the Sun." No theory could
explain the outburst from the 15-kilometer nucleus, which created a
cloud of dust 300,000 kilometers wide. The cloud was "made mainly of
dust, with no sign of any spectral lines emitted by any gas."
Significantly for the electrical model (which does not require any
gas from heated ices to explain the outburst) the Sun was going
through a maximum of activity that fitted the outburst of comet
Halley. Astronomers could not see the significance: "…the amount of
energy in the bursts is diluted as they move outward. Even the most
intense burst of protons should not deliver enough energy to provoke
an outburst of this size at such a distance." But comments such as
this require one to exclude electrical currents from consideration.
A high voltage, negatively charged comet will attract protons to the
nucleus from a huge volume of surrounding space.

7. Surface erosion. In the electric
model as formulated by Wallace Thornhill, “cathode
sputtering” will disintegrate
surface layers of the
negatively charged object by bombarding it with energetic ions in an
electric discharge. The discharge will be concentrated in small
spots as arcs eat away a surface, giving rise to steep-walled
craters and broad flat-floored valleys surrounded by sharply-defined
mesas or terraces. That is the familiar look of electrical etching.
A beautiful example is seen on the surface of Comet Tempel 1 above,
but other examples are abundant on planets and moons. The
electrically etched surface of
Jupiter’s moon Io is the most
striking example because the process is still underway
in the electrified Jovian environment.

Significantly, a paper in
the journal Science, in October 2005, noted that “shocks” caused by
ion sputtering of a cathode or negatively charged surface
sharpen steep surface features—a dramatic contrast to the
way the evaporation of ices will attenuate surface
relief. A steep “cliff” remains even as it is eaten away by an arc
progressively expanding the dimensions of the valley floor.

As Thornhill has long
contended, cathode arcs tend to impinge on sharp edges because of
the higher electric field there—a point that reinforces the Science
article. In contrast to prevailing ideas about Io’s “volcanoes”, Thornhill predicted that the electric-discharge plumes would move
around the edges of the valley floors. And that is what the Galileo
probe discovered—another surprise for astronomers and planetary
scientists who had not expected to find “volcanoes” to be
movingacross the surface of Io.

Viewing the comet in
similar electrical terms will allow us to answer one of the least
noticed but most profound mysteries posed by Comet Tempel 1. In the
best pictures of the nucleus taken from the spacecraft, numerous
patches of whiteout appear, most frequently on the edges of mesa
cliffs, crater walls, and other surface relief. It is clearly not a
random glitch in photography. Somehow the camera, photographing a
body as dark as copier toner, was selectively saturated by
bright spots on the surface.

Have we ever seen such a
thing before? Curiously, exactly the same thing occurred when the
Galileo probe viewed the electric plumes moving across the surface
of Io. The designers of the camera had not anticipated anything so
bright. But that is the nature of the electric arc—it’s why arc
welders wear those darkened masks!

What will it take, then,
to convince NASA scientists to ask the question: Do the patches of
whiteout in close-ups of Tempel 1 reveal electrical discharge
activity—on a scale that would immediately invalidate the
foundational assumptions of today’s cometary science?

8. Fine cometary dust.
Cathode sputtering has an
effect that is simply “beyond the reach” of evaporating volatiles.
It can create an exceedingly fine dust down to 1 micrometer or even
finer. (One micrometer is just 40 millionths of an inch). This
unique capability of cathode sputtering is why the process is used
in the manufacture of highly reflective mirrors for modern
telescopes. So again, a comparison of practical electrical
technology with the discoveries of Deep Impact is only reasonable.

This line of investigation introduces another surprise: Astronomers could
not understand what occurred when the 800-pound projectile hit the
comet nucleus. An enormous volume of an extraordinarily fine dust
was thrown into space at high speed, creating an extremely bright
cloud due to the dust’s remarkable reflectivity. NASA scientists
estimated that the dust particles were only .5 to 1 micrometer
in diameter.

But
was the surprise justified? Almost twenty years earlier the visit to
Halley had investigators wondering how “sublimating ices” could
produce such fine comet dust. But that surprise, like so many
others, seems to have been quickly forgotten.

Also
from the report in Science, in its recent report on the Deep Impact
explosion: "The brightness increase lasted at least an order of
magnitude longer than the expected crater formation time of 3–6
minutes." And the "…kinetic energy of the impactor is insufficient
to provide the energy required to sublimate the observed amounts of
water."

Remembering that the water was estimated from OH molecules seen
after the impact, we can see that another key
prediction by
Thornhill,
made in October 2001 concerning the expected outcomes of the impact
with Tempel 1, was satisfied: "the energetic effects of the encounter
should exceed that of a simple physical impact, in the same way that
was seen with comet Shoemaker-Levy 9 at Jupiter". In the electric
view, the unexpected energies of the Deep Impact explosion, and the
release of unexpectedly fine dust, are both the predictable
consequence of plasma discharge.

PLEASE NOTE: In the presentation above we have combined a series of
TPODs in order to present, on one “page”, a unified answer to the
question of water-ice on comets. This Picture of the Day will remain
posted here through February 26.